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Wednesday, 5 August 2015

Steven Moffat: The Doctor is neither 100% male nor female - like all of us

The question of whether a woman will ever play the lead role in
Doctor Who has been asked many times in recent years. Yesterday
showrunner Steven Moffat said that it's possible — and added that he
doesn't see The Doctor's gender as fixed.

“I’m not making it inevitable and I’m not preventing it; I’m just
saying ‘it’s possible,'” Moffat said at the Television Critics
Association summer press tour on
Friday. “The key thing about changing The Master to Missy is that The
Doctor doesn’t react to it at all. He just carries on talking. He is
shocked that she’s there; he doesn’t say anything about the fact she’s a
woman, so clearly that’s a very big statement. That’s just a thing that
happens.

“In my head, rationally, it seems to me — you know how human beings
are never completely male or female; you’re mostly a woman, I’m mostly a
man? — that maybe a male Time Lord is someone most of whose
regenerations are male,” Moffat continued. “Maybe he’ll have a couple of
female ones. The science-fiction of that would make sense to me.
Otherwise I think life might be a little bit complicated on Gallifrey —
or would it? I don’t think they’d care.”

Moffat went on to say that “very, very few people” can play The
Doctor and it's about finding the right actor, regardless of sex.

“It’s not an impossibility to have a lady Doctor. It is not a lock
either. There is no guarantee. I wish sometimes that the politics of
that would take a backseat and we’d just talk about the art, because
it’s not really about that. It’s just about ‘would it work?’ The day it
will work is when somebody says, ‘That person would be amazing,’ and the
most conservative, most traditional member of the audience says, ‘Oh
god, yes. I would hate the idea of a lady Doctor, but that one would be
great.'”

Asked what qualities an actor, male or female, needs to be considered
for the role, Moffat replied: “Sheer carved out of solid star. Someone
who you can’t take your eyes off, not because they’re beautiful —
usually they’re not quite beautiful — somebody whose face is so
fascinating.”

Last December Moffat said that he cast Peter Capaldi as the Twelfth Doctor rather than a woman because "It didn't feel right to me, right now" – and that lots of female fans had told him they felt the same way.

Peter Capaldi, Steven Moffat and executive producer
Brian Minchin will talk Time Lords, Daleks and Cybermen on Friday 25th
September at the Radio Times Festival at The Green at Hampton Court. You
can buy ticketshere.